Advertisement Consent

Contents

Putting up a sign is development’s odd cousin. It has its own consent regime, its own regulations, its own two-question test, and, unusually, displaying one without permission is a criminal offence from day one, with no notice and no chance to put it right first. The good news is that a great many signs need no application at all. This page explains which do, which don’t, and what happens when you get it wrong.

What is advertisement consent?

The display of advertisements is controlled separately from ordinary planning, under Part VIII of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regulations 2007.

Two features make it unlike the rest of the planning system, and both are in your favour:

you do not need planning permission as well. Section 222 deems planning permission to be granted for any development involved in displaying an advertisement in accordance with the Regulations. One consent, not two
the council may only consider amenity and public safety. Nothing else. It is a deliberately lighter-touch regime than planning permission

The definition of “advertisement” is very broad: it is not just billboards. Fascia signs, projecting signs, posters, placards, hoardings, flags and many directional signs are all caught.

When do you need advertisement consent?

The Regulations put every advertisement into one of three boxes:

exempt: outside advertisement control altogether. Schedule 1 sets out the classes, and they include things like traffic signs, national flags, and advertisements displayed on enclosed land such as a railway or bus station
deemed consent: consent is granted automatically by the Regulations, provided you keep within the conditions. Schedule 3 sets out sixteen operative classes (numbered 1 to 15 and 17; the former Class 16 for telephone kiosks was revoked in 2019), and the conditions typically deal with size, height and whether the sign is illuminated. For a class-by-class breakdown of the Schedule 3 classes and the limits attached to each, see our advertisement deemed consent page
express consent: you must apply. This is everything that does not fall into the first two boxes

In practice, poster hoardings, externally illuminated signs and many directional signs need express consent. As a rough rule of thumb, a sign that is illuminated, or larger than the class conditions allow, is heading for an application, but check the class conditions rather than relying on rules of thumb, because they are specific.

Two things bite even where you have deemed consent. Every advertisement is subject to the standard conditions in Schedule 2 of the Regulations. And you always need the permission of whoever owns the site. Deemed consent is consent from the planning system, not from the landowner.

One exemption causes more confusion than all the rest put together: the one for advertisements on vehicles. It is far narrower than people assume, and it is why the trailers parked in fields beside motorways are not the loophole they look like. See our guide to whether you can put an advert by a motorway.

The two tests: amenity and public safety

The council’s powers may only be exercised in the interests of amenity and public safety. That is the whole of it.

Amenity covers both visual and aural amenity: if the sign makes a noise, that counts. The general characteristics of the locality matter, including the presence of any feature of historic, architectural or cultural interest. A sign that is unremarkable on a retail park may be refused on a listed shopfront.

Public safety is not confined to road safety. It covers the safe use and operation of any form of traffic or transport (on land, over water or in the air) and includes pedestrians. A sign that distracts drivers at a junction, roundabout or pedestrian crossing is far more likely to be refused than the same sign on a straight road.

What the council cannot do

It cannot control what your sign says. Unless it is required in the interests of amenity or public safety, an express consent must not contain any limitation or restriction relating to the subject matter, content or design of what is displayed.

Whether an advertisement is tasteful, truthful or offensive is not a planning matter. That is for the Advertising Standards Authority. If a council refuses on the basis of what your sign says rather than how it looks or how safe it is, it has stepped outside its powers.

Applying for advertisement consent

An application goes to the local planning authority, with a plan identifying the site by reference to at least two named roads, showing the proposed position of the advertisement, and drawn to scale.

The council must decide within 8 weeks, beginning with the day it received the application. A fee is payable. See our guide to planning fees in England.

Express consent is normally granted for five years, though it can be shorter or longer. You can apply to renew, but not more than six months before the consent is due to expire.

The council can also decline to determine an application that is similar to one it has already dealt with, where there has been no significant change in the relevant considerations, so a straight resubmission after a refusal is not a strategy.

Areas of special control

A council can designate an area of special control by order, and the restrictions inside one are considerably tighter. Designation is typically used for historic centres and sensitive landscapes.

Councils can also issue directions restricting deemed consent, so a sign class that would ordinarily be automatic may need an application in a particular area. If you are in a conservation area, a national park or somewhere similar, check the local position before assuming a deemed consent class applies.

Discontinuance notices: losing a deemed consent

Deemed consent is not permanent. Where the council is satisfied it is necessary to remedy a substantial injury to the amenity of the locality, or a danger to the public, it can serve a discontinuance notice requiring you to stop displaying a particular advertisement, or to stop using a site for advertisements altogether.

The notice takes effect at the end of a period specified in it, which must be at least eight weeks after it is served. If you appeal, the notice does not take effect until the appeal is finally determined or withdrawn.

If you are refused

You can appeal to the Secretary of State (in practice the Planning Inspectorate) where consent is refused or conditions are imposed you object to. The deadline is 8 weeks from the date you receive the decision, which is not the same as the date printed on the notice, or eight weeks from the expiry of the council’s period where it has not decided at all.

Eight weeks is short. It is shorter than the twelve weeks a householder gets, and far shorter than the six months for most planning appeals, so diary it the day the refusal lands. The Secretary of State can allow a longer period, and can do so at any time, but that is a discretion rather than a right and it is not something to rely on. See our guide to planning appeals and timescales, and our page on the advertisement consent appeal itself.

The trigger date for an advertisement appeal is not the same as for an ordinary planning appeal, where it is the date the application was submitted. Here it is the date the council decided it. Where your application was decided on or after 1st April 2026, the appeal follows the expedited procedure: the Inspector considers only what was already before the council, and there is no statement of case and no new evidence. That expedited route now covers an appeal against conditions as well as an appeal against a refusal. Appeals against a discontinuance notice are different: they follow the fuller procedure, and must be made before the notice’s effective date.

Displaying a sign without consent is a criminal offence

This is where advertisement control has real teeth, and where it differs sharply from planning.

Anyone who displays an advertisement in contravention of the Regulations commits an offence under section 224, whether by displaying without consent, or by breaching the conditions attached to one. There is no enforcement notice first, no period to comply, no opportunity to regularise. It is immediately open to the council to prosecute in the magistrates’ court.

The penalty is a fine at level 4 on the standard scale, currently £2,500, and for a continuing offence a further daily fine of up to one tenth of that amount for every day the contravention continues.

Our guide to advertisement enforcement takes both routes further: the discontinuance notice that can take a consent away from a sign that already had one, who counts as displaying a sign, the defence that exists, and how long the council has to bring a prosecution.

The council has practical powers too. It can remove or obliterate placards and posters, and under section 225A it can remove and dispose of a display structure it considers is being used for illegal advertisements, serving a removal notice first where the person responsible can be identified. Where a successful prosecution follows a failure to comply with an enforcement notice, a confiscation order under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 is also possible.

Practical points

check the Schedule 3 deemed consent classes before applying, because a great many signs are already consented, and an application you did not need is money and delay for nothing
check for a direction restricting deemed consent, and for an area of special control, before relying on a class
illumination changes everything: it is the single most common reason a sign that would otherwise be automatic needs an application
deemed consent is not the landowner’s permission; you need both
if the building is listed, listed building consent may be needed as well, because advertisement consent does not cover it
diary the eight week appeal deadline the day a refusal arrives; it is one of the shortest in the system
never put the sign up and wait to see. The offence is immediate

See also our guide to the types of planning application.

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